AIS is intended to help ships avoid collisions, as well as assisting port authorities to better control sea traffic. AIS transponders on board vessels include a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver, which collects position and movement details. It includes also a VHF transmitter, which transmits periodically this information on two VHF channels (frequencies 161.975 MHz and 162.025 MHz – old VHF channels 87 & 88) and make this data available to the public domain. Other vessels or base stations are able to receive this information, process it using special software and display vessels locations on a chart plotter or on a computer.

If you like tracking ships or just like being nosey, you can use the Marine Traffic website to do just that. You can move around the map and zoom in on your area and see what commercial traffic is there, what direction it is moving and at what speed is it moving. If you live in an area where you often see commercial ships that you wonder about just look them up real time as they pass by. Use the following link to visit the Marine Traffice site. http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/default.aspx?level0=100

One response to “What is AIS?”

SI-TEX makes a great AIS BLACK BOX. This black box: Assists in Traffic Monitoring, Management and Collision Prevention. One of the coolest features is any vessel on the screen can be selected to display vessel’s MMSI number, name, course over ground, speed over ground, range, latitude and longitude.